| Summary: | Every day, huge amounts of energy are used by all sectors of the economy. From transport to industries, energy constitutes the base of development and people’s way of living. Besides, the energetic demand of millions of individuals must be satisfied with resources that are in constant depletion while the consumption is growing at a 2% rate every year. The consequence of such increase is that in the last decade energy costs have risen extremely fast. Societies must now find a way of maintaining the actual social-economic growth whilst reducing the energy demand in order to ensure sustainable development. Ice hockey arenas in Sweden have an average energy consumption of more than 1000 MWh per year, and around 42% of the total is used by the refrigeration system to cool the rink surface. The core of these units is the chiller, a machine that removes heat from a cold refrigerant and as a product of this chilling process, waste heat is generated. This energy can be exhausted to the environment or recovered for heating purposes. The main aim of this study is to investigate the uses given to the waste heat in Läkerol Arena, in Gävle. Some alternatives have been proposed and analysed in order to diminish the amount of rejected heat. Other objectives set in this project are to examine the possibility of reducing the dependence on district heating and to determine the efficacy of insulating the ground below the heating pipes that prevent permafrost. Nowadays the heat recovery system is used to preheat tap water until 30ºC and then up to 60ºC, to warm the air sent to the main rink area and to prevent the creation of permafrost in the ground below the main arena. The unused energy is sent to ambient with six big fans placed on the roof. The first additional use for waste heat proposed in this study is to design a heating system just for the resurfacing water. The current method in Läkerol Arena is to mix hot tap water with cold water. The problem is that the first one is three times more expensive than the second, so ...
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